I had left my laptop closed but on for awhile, but it didn't over heat or anything. I opened back up and it looked like it had shut-down, so I hit the power button. It looked like it was booting up like normal and then it went to a screen that said "A disk read error occurred" and to press ctrl alt del, to restart. I did that many times and it just keeps doing that time after time.

Someone please tell me that the problem isn't nearly as bad as I think it is, and please tell me how I can fix it.

I don't want to lose any of my stuff, because I don't have a back-up on most of it.

Hey welcome to Techspot. Maybe a dumb question but does this laptop have a floppy drive?

How old is your Toshiba Satellite, and what is the model name or number?
It is likely that your hard drive has gone bad, or the data on it is corrupted. There is a good chance that you can still rescue your data, but you will likely need a desktop with lots of space on the hard drive, as well as a mobile drive adapter.

no it doesn't have a floppy, just CD

the model number is: A105-S2101 and I just got it torwards the end of last year

typical symptom of a hard drive failure.
reseat the hard drive.
If it doesn't work. Replace the drive with a new one.
Take the old drive, use it as an external and attempt to retrieve files off of it.

I don't want to do anything that would void any warranties that I have on it, because I am poor and can only afford free or cheap repairs.

but if it comes down to it how would you use it as an external?

hum; most laptops are pre-configured to HYBERNATE when the lid is closed.
Upon reopening the lid, it appears somewhat like a boot-up -- but it's not.
(I have a Toshiba mx36-161).

Assuming your system will still cold boot correctly, then the disk is just fine and
your fingers got in the way

Boot to a running condition and the HD lite stays off,
close the lid and let the LEDs on the edge of the laptop change -- one will go out.

now open the lid and sit on your hands -- you should get your login screen or
your desktop depending upon how you login to a cold system.

I don't think thats the problem, it wouldn't even show the log in, but it lets me go to the boot menus

but someone told me that I can get a 2.5 SATA USB Drive Case and it might be able to get my data off of my hard drive, but I was wondering if anyone knew anything about one of those. I don't want to buy one that won't work for my hard drive.

I don't think that Toshiba Satellite has SATA connections, but you can do the same with any external USB case for portable or mobile drives.

The Toshiba website had said that it had a SATA hard drive that was 9.5 mm, when I went to it for spec.s, but I also talked to someone who said that Toshiba is really good about trying to retrive data off of hard drives for customers, so I'm not sure what I want to do. If I want to invest in something to try and get my data or just see if Toshiba can get the data for me, I'm going to try calling them on Friday when I have time.

,Thanks though